Using a classical recipe on sweets from the days of the Roman Empire by Apicius, this ice cream - on a base of Sicilian egg-less gelato - is filled with a honest and sweet, yet slightly salty, mixture of nuts and dates.
Ingredients
The ice cream base
350 ml cream
350 ml milk
About 100 ml honey
4 teaspoons of starch
Pinch of salt
Add ins
About 100 ml assorted, roasted and chopped nuts
About 150 gram finely chopped dates, fresh or dried
Instructions
Whisk together 200 ml (about 0.8 cup) of the milk with the corn starch, making sure that there are no lumps.
Set aside for now. Blend the remaining 500 ml (about 2.1 cup) of the milk/cream, the honey and the salt in a sauce pan. Warm until steaming hot on medium heat. Now, blend in the corn starch mixture with the rest of the ingredients in the sauce pan. Barely reaching a boil, cook and stir for about five minutes, or until the mixture begins to thicken. Reduce the heat and continue to stir for about five more minutes until the mixture has thickened even further and any “floury” taste (from the corn starch) has disappeared.
Take off from the heat and let the mixture cool down. Refrigerate for a couple of hours and freeze according to the instructions of your ice cream machine (or still-freeze without an ice cream machine, as described elsewhere on the blog).
Towards the end of the churning, add the pieces of nuts and dates to the ice cream base.
Recipe by ICE CREAM NATION at https://www.icecreamnation.org/2012/03/dulcia-domestica-ice-cream/